Af­ter arch ri­vals South Africa had beat­en the New Zeaand rug­by team for the third straight time in 2009, New Zealand cap­tain Richie Mc­Caw laid an All Black jer­sey in front of his men at the Her­itage Ho­tel and said: "There have been some great men who spilt blood for this jer­sey, made sac­ri­fices. The tough­ness, ruth­less­ness, pow­er, pace. The want. That's got to come from with­in, the in­ner de­sire if that's what it takes."

The above quote is an apt sum­ma­ry of what rep­re­sent­ing your coun­try is about. All sports­men and women can at­test to that deep down emo­tion­al res­o­nance. Na­tion­al pride. Sport stake­hold­ers have na­tion­al pride and com­mit­ment in abun­dance.It's the pow­er of sport. As we head in­to the fi­nal three weeks of gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign­ing, many ques­tions are be­ing asked and plat­form promis­es are aplen­ty.

A ques­tion that come to mind is: are the po­lit­i­cal par­ties mind­ful that sport stake­hold­ers have a vote?What will be the fu­ture like for sport in T&T?Will the cuts and belt tight­en have a dev­as­tat­ing im­pact on sport?What are the re­spec­tive par­ties' pol­i­cy re­gard­ing to sport?Un­der which par­ty and gov­ern­ment will sport be bet­ter served?

There are per­ti­nent ques­tions that have to be asked by sport stake­hold­ers. If sport is go­ing to be looked at in the usu­al way then it is go­ing to be a long hard road.Har­bour no il­lu­sions of grandeur.If sport is to achieve any sem­blance of sus­tain­able progress, growth and de­vel­op­ment it re­quires a quan­tum leap for­ward.

Sport stake­hold­ers have a vote and like all cit­i­zens sport stake­hold­ers have a stake in de­ter­min­ing what T&T will look like post Sep­tem­ber 7. A fun­da­men­tal, foun­da­tion­al and rad­i­cal change in think­ing is need­ed for sport to thrive in the com­ing years.The re­al­i­ty of falling oil and gas rev­enues is not an il­lu­sion. Sport stake­hold­ers must val­ue their vote.

These days are not the best of times for har­ried sport ad­min­is­tra­tors, ath­letes, coach­es and sport clubs, sport fans and sup­port­ers and sport club mem­bers. Any one with a pas­sion and keen in­ter­est in sport in T&T will be fail­ing in their du­ty, re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and oblig­a­tion if they did­nt give se­ri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion to the fu­ture of sport.

So much is still need­ed to be done to de­vel­op a sport­ing cul­ture in T&T.With me­dia hous­es cut­ting back on the al­lot­ed time and space for sport in the elec­tion fren­zy, it is very clear that sport is low down on the na­tion­al val­ue chain.Sport has a vote and that vote should not be tak­en for grant­ed or un­der­es­ti­mat­ed.

Sport has the pow­er to make a dif­fer­ence in all ar­eas of na­tion­al life.If, how­ev­er, sport stake­hold­ers don't have re­spect for their col­lec­tive pow­er then don't ex­pect any­one else to take sport se­ri­ous­ly.Sport in T&T should not al­low it­self to be des­ig­nat­ed as in­signif­i­cant and unim­por­tant. It has been said that you can't win or lose a gen­er­al elec­tion on the ba­sis of a lack of a sport pol­i­cy or be­cause you have one.

That may well be so but we are in chang­ing times.Post Sep­tem­ber 7, sport will move up the na­tion­al val­ue chain and be a se­ri­ous top­ic on the na­tion­al agen­da.Sport mat­ters. Sport has a vote and sport can and will make a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence.

Bri­an Lewis is the Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee. The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the Olympic Com­mit­tee. Sup­port #10 Golds24 Ath­lete Wel­fare and Prepa­ra­tion Fund make your do­na­tions to any branch of Sco­tia­bank ac­count num­ber 171188